Whatever the Weather
by Starkiller
Summary: A series of short stories chronicling the dark origins of Ginyu Force team member Jeice. Also features a bit of Zarbon, Vegeta and Frieza's history.
1. Heatwave

**A/N:** As I've written so many stories featuring Jeice as a main character over a spell of eight years or so, I decided to get down to a story purely about him or more precisely his origins in DBZ. This will follow canon as closely as possible.

Jeice is 12 years old in this chapter.

**Whatever the Weather**  
Heatwave

The white hot sun glared relentlessly down on his neck and shoulders, burning the skin there from orange to scarlet. It came as no surprise to Jeice that the symbol of the sun was universally accepted as a symbol of war. He dragged one foot painfully after the other down the dusty red dirt road. Miles of grassy plains, partially tinged with yellow where the stalks had been dried out by the sun, stretched towards a hazy horizon where red valleys squeezed between the rolling hills.

_'Same old, same old,'_ Jeice thought restlessly. _'Nothin' ever happens to me.'_

He whipped at the trickling stream running beside him with the feathered tail of a reed and imagined he was fighting one of the seven-headed Hydra serpents on planet Saur.

"I heard some Saiyans from the Planet Trade attacked Vega in the Gorse system yesterday," his friend proclaimed excitedly beside him. "Two million people they slaughtered!"

"Those Saiyans are mental," Jeice muttered and slashed again at the sparkling water. "What did Vega do to them? They're witless cowards!"

Barack shook his head stubbornly. "Frieza announced Vega was planning a massacre on its neighbouring planet for fossil fuels. They deserved what they got."

Jeice flipped his long hair out of his eyes and smirked. "Yeh're out your freakin' noggin' mate. You do know what _Planet Trade_ means right? It means Frieza and his fat henchmen invade systems and auction them off to the highest bidder."

Barrack glared. "That's only the holo-press talking garbage. They're just afraid of Frieza."

Jeice squinted up at the sun and laughed. "They should be! He looks like a Paedophile."

"Real mature," Barrack rolled his eyes. "Well me dad says Frieza's got the right idea. Everyone knows the Space-Trading routes are crawling with pirates. Somebody has to take control, why not him?"

Jeice flashed him a brazen smile. "Well ah'd rather be a pirate any day! They've got it real sweet. No rules, no responsibility, no slaving away on a boring farm all day," Jeice said, expertly twirling the long reed in one hand before flipping it up in the air and catching it with the other. "Only fighting and adventure! That's my idea of fun."

"That's not a goal," Barrack said sullenly and leaned into a splintered sign post at a fork in the road. "That's just copping out, Jeice. A farm hand is an honourable position."

Jeice grunted disdainfully. "It's bloody boring is what it is."

"I wish you'd be more open-minded," Barrack stated quietly.

"About Frieza?" Jeice threw the reed away and shoved his hands into his torn pockets. "Why are you so sore about this?"

"I'm not sore," Barrack muttered. "But you're hardly taking this seriously."

Jeice spat at the ground and shrugged his shoulders. He hated politics and the afternoon heat was beginning to warm his temper. "What's to take seriously? C'mon, you don't really believe them Ice-jin are going to come down here and save your sorry ass do you?"

"What's so wrong with Frieza anyway?!" Barrack snapped. "Dad says he's just what this system needs."

"Frieza's a bloody nut just like you're old dad," Jeice retorted testily.

"He's not a nut!" Barrack cried, his temper rising. "And at least he ain't a drunk like your dad!"

That remark hit a nerve. Jeice swore and threw all his weight at Barrack, the force propelling them both to the dusty red ground where they wrestled, kicked and punched at each other until both were bloody and bruised from their exertions. Jeice was exhausted but still too enraged to stop. He grabbed Barrack's arm and twisted it around until the other screamed in anguish and wriggled frantically away from his grip.

Barrack gaped at his arm in shock - it was bloody and bent at an awkward angle.

He glared at Jeice, his blue eyes wet with unshed tears. "You're bloody crazy Jeice!" he began to scramble away down the road, clutching his arm to his chest. "Your dad's going to kill you for this! I'll make sure of it!"

Jeice wiped the back of his hand across his face which was wet with perspiration and blood from his many scrapes and cuts. "Gutless coward," Jeice grunted and stared coldly as his friend's back as he ran towards town. He cursed and kicked at the path, sending up clouds of dust. The news would get back to his parents in no time.

'_Dad's goin' to be pissed,'_ he thought with a shiver, '_real pissed.'_

Taking the path on his right, Jeice began to limp his own way home towards Scarlocke Ranch. The great shaggy armaks grazing in the field at once raised their horned heads as he passed by; a couple even bellowed their greeting. He had spent the entirety of his young life herding these creatures.

Jeice leaned on the rickety fence surrounding his modest home and closed his eyes for a moment. However much pain he was in now, he knew it wouldn't compare to the pain he'd feel by next morning. With a grunt he pushed himself towards the back door.

The bare stone slabs of the backdoor entrance hall were uneven and soothingly cool against his bare feet. He remembered how the crooked slabs had irritated him as a small toddler playing spin-top on the kitchen floor. His mother had laughed at the way his face scrunched up when the spinning top hit a crack in the slab and toppled over.

A few drops of dark liquid caught his eye as he headed further into the kitchen, but it was the silence and the smell of over-cooked meat, followed by billows of hot steam that first alerted him. He jumped with a start at the sound of a loud crash coming from the barn.

'_Bloody Watto musta knocked over the crates again,'_ he told himself, hand against his beating heart, '_stupid beast.'_

When his breathing returned to normal he moved further into the room. "Mum, ah'm home," he called, looking around. "Did Barrack cal…"

Words failed him as his green eyes took in the scene before him. A pot of stew was boiling over on the stove. A couple of plates had smashed on the worn worktop. Blood spattered the white-washed stone walls and his mother lay in a dead heap below the sink, blackened bruises around her neck.

A stab of terrible pain tore through his chest as a vague realisation hit him.

Jeice stumbled towards the backdoor without another thought and picked up a spade before running full pelt across the dusty yard. He stopped abruptly in front of the bolted barn door, heat and rage consuming him entirely. He held one palm towards the door concentrating all his grief and anger into energy. The long grass at his feet began to sway violently as gusts of wind radiated from his body, and a small orange orb glowed at his outstretched palm. He fired it at the door which exploded violently, sending a herd of armak in a neighbouring field stampeding.

Jeice charged into the barn outside, choking, screaming and crying in gabber of incoherent speech - and came face to face with his father swinging back and forth below the rafters. His neck was broken and his foot was twitching spasmodically.

Tears flooded Jeice's green eyes and his lip began to quiver wildly as his father mouthed wordlessly at him; a pleading, an apology.

"You bastard…you bloody bastard," Jeice choked, staring the hanging man in the eye while his own green eyes hardened with burning hatred. "You ain't dead yet."

He lifted the spade high above his head and brought it down, one swift strike after another.

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Please review! I'd like to think there are still some Jeice fans out there haha


	2. Storm

**A/N:** Thanks everyone for the fantastic reviews! I'm glad there are still Jeice fans out there. Apologies for the craptacular-ness of this chapter. It'll get better when Jeice enters the Planet Trade's garrison.

**Whatever the Weather**  
Storm

"Welcome to the Wetlands-Trawler; sea crawling transport for the aspiring soldier travelling to Sol Bridge Garrison. Duration of our journey will take approximately two and a half hours –" The conductor was cut off abruptly as more heavy winds buffeted the ship. "- weather permissing," he added, rubbing his shoulder where it had slammed into the ship's arching wall.

Jeice looked around the ship's interior. It was large and damp and leaking in several places. Puddles of sea water gleamed in the dim electric light. Jeice ran a finger along the table he was sitting at and quirked his mouth at the grains of salt which he had gathered in a pile. He wasn't entirely hopeful that the old rust-bucket he was travelling in could traverse the high waves that lay between the mainland and the island, Sol Bridge, but it was better than an orphanage.

_Anything_ was better than an orphanage.

"You wait and see, mate – I'll make General within the year!" A boy – Jeice recognised him as belonging to the twin horned Minotauros race – was sitting a few seats along from him, boasting to a crowd of friends.

"General? Hah!" exclaimed an older human boy sporting a shock of electric blue hair. "You want to focus on staying alive, small fry. I wouldn't recommend that you get all high and mighty or full of delusions of grandeur. Otherwise, you know, they'll snap your neck in the first week."

Jeice pretended to fix his full attention on the strong winds howling outside, the stormy sea visible through a series of small portholes along the starboard side, and listened closely to the conversation beside him. He peered at the group of boys out the corner of his eye.

The smaller boy had turned a little pale and there was a shaky sort of smile on his face. "They wouldn't dare. My dad's Head of his county," he stammered in reply. "Anyway, you can't just go killin' folk willy nilly."

"For the love of Sol, don't go about using words like willy nilly, neither!" The human boy cried, throwing his drink about. "Look here, this isn't any old garrison we're off to and it ain't no jolly holiday moreover. Maybe you just thought you were joining ranks like the rest of the daft idiots aboard this hell cruise, but let me ask you this: just who do you think this garrison belongs to, eh?"

"S-soltana, of course…"

The human boy cackled gleefully. "Wrong!" He bent over the table and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "It belongs to the Planet Tra–"

The ship suddenly pitched violently to one side, throwing everyone in the main compartment hall to the floor. Jeice swore as he cracked his jaw off the hard deck. The howling wind was whistling through cracks and under the doors even as the ship steadied and swung back into its old rhythmic rise and fall over the undulating waves. Jeice rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth; he could taste the steely metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

"Bloody 'ell – what kind of bleeding ship is this?" he grumbled irritably.

"The _free_ kind," answered a voice from under him. "So mind your manners or I'll toss you overboard. Now ger'off me!"

Pulling himself up, Jeice stared at the girl struggling to push his legs off her stomach, and recognised her as the conductor from earlier. He frowned; he'd been sure the conductor had been a boy, but here before him was a small, stocky girl, maybe eleven years old – certainly no older than he was – with a pair of sharp dark eyes and a heart-shaped face. Her cropped hair was pearly white like his, only Jeice knew instantly from her skin colour that she wasn't a Solian. Perhaps a human, but he couldn't be sure. There were so many human half-breeds kicking about these days, it was getting harder to tell the pure-bloods from the mongrels.

"What'choo lookin' at then?" the girl asked, scowling. She had dropped her professional manner now that she only had Jeice to talk to.

"You're a ruddy girl," Jeice pointed out plainly.

The small girl cracked her knuckles menacingly. "What's your point, then?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," said Jeice casually, waving his hands in front of her. "Ah thought you were a boy earlier, that's all."

The girl bristled in her greasy stained overalls. "You slimey Solian! I hate this stupid planet," she shoved him off her completely and struggled to her feet.

"Oi, girly, wait up a minute!" Jeice called, following her at a half jog across the jumble of dazed bodies across the deck. "Ah want to ask you somethin'," he said, catching her by the elbow.

"Alright, but make it quick. And you'll have to follow me up to the top," she told him hurriedly. "I don't need the crew giving me more stick."

Jeice didn't waste any time. "You know anything about this garrison?"

The girl raised her eyebrows. "That depends what you _want_ to know…"

They were on the top deck now and the wind was howling ferociously. Jeice had never seen waves so huge before. Come to think of it, he had never seen the sea. He stood for a moment and gaped at the rolling hills of water, some easily ten times the size of the Wetlands-Crawler. The conductor yelled at him over the roar of the wind and yanked him on by his sleeve cuff.

"Don't dawdle," she said, clinging to the railing. "If you think the Captain'll halt this ship and turn it around when you get blown overboard, you've got another thing coming!" Jeice nodded readily and followed her at a close pace. "So what is it you want to know about the garrison?" she asked him.

"Ah want to know what the real deal is. Who does the garrison belong to if it ain't Soltana's?" he shouted . "It can't belong to the bloody Planet Trade. They haven't even invaded us-" He was cut off by a hand wrapping over his mouth. The girl put her finger to her mouth sternly and her dark eyes darted around the slippery deck. When she was sure there was no one nearby, she said, "Don't mention You-Know-Who, specially not on this ship. There's loads of Frieza's spies on here and they won't bother to brainwash you if you show any sign of treason." She leaned in closer to him. "You didn't hear about Planet Vegeta, did you?"

Jeice quirked a bushy eyebrow and shook his head. "No. Why, what 'appened to it, then?" he asked eagerly. "Get invaded, eh? Serves those monkeys right. Nothin' but a race of cold-blooded murderers, them."

The girl smirked at him darkly. "Cold-blooded?" she repeated, her eyes twinkling. "Didn't you murder your old man? Been through the files. Took a spade to his head, didn't you?"

Jeice grit his teeth and clenched his fist close to her face. "You better watch your mouth or you'll be swimming with the fishes, girly!"

Before the girl could retort, there was a deafening crack as the sky split open; lightning had struck the crawler. A blaze of fire was scorching its' way across the bridge; bits of metal and other debris were raining onto the deck. The conductor cried out as one of the windows above them shattered. Jeice dived nimbly to the side, avoiding the raining glass by mere inches, but the girl was not so lucky. He saw her rear back in fright, too close to the railing. Wind howled, another tremendous wave surged against the port side of the Wetlands-Crawler, and the girl toppled over into the waves.

Jeice cowered beneath the flaming bridge, green eyes wide with shock. The ship was still pitching dangerously – the sea was coming closer. There were screams from the main hall of the ship and he realised with a sickening horror that the Captain must have been killed in that last lightning strike. Jeice slid towards the railings, slamming against the metal bars painfully.

The ship was going down. There were no two ways about it: he'd have to jump.

He grit his teeth and swore loudly, "Bugger, bugger bugger!" then grasped the wet bars, swung himself over and plunged into the mercy of the waves.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter coming soon. Please review folks if you want me to continue. I doubt I would've continued this if it weren't for people's interest (got sooo much on my plate XD) 


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